Iraqi Resistance Grows

By GERRY FOLEY

Attacks by Iraqi resistance fighters on the U.S. occupation forces and their allies showed a new sharp increase over the month of November. In all, 104 members of the coalition forces were killed, including 79 U.S. soldiers. It was the bloodiest month yet of the continuing U.S. war against Iraq.

Moreover, there have been a number of serious journalistic reports indicating general public support for the resistance attacks where they take place. And these incidents are by no means confined to the so-called Sunni Triangle, where the Saddam regime had its principal base.

In its Nov. 27 issue, The New York Times published a major story describing the growing hostility to U.S. forces in the northern city of Mosul, a multi-ethnic center that the U.S. occupation has made special efforts to woo: “Since the Americans came to town seven months ago, the firefighters in this northern Iraqi city have gotten new trucks and new uniforms, American training and salaries 10 times larger than they used to be.

“But when word came Sunday afternoon that two American soldiers had been shot in the head and killed a block away, the men of Ras al Jada fire station ran to the site and looked on with glee as a crowd of locals dragged the Americans from their car and tore off their watches and jackets and boots.

“‘I was happy, everyone was happy," Waadallah Muhammad, one of the firefighters, said as he stood in front of the firehouse. ‘The Americans, yes, they do good things, but only to enhance their reputation. They are occupiers. We want them to leave.’”

A number of reports also noted popular rejoicing at the scene of an ambush of a Spanish reconnaissance team on Nov. 29. The British Guardian of Nov. 30 quoted a U.S. cameraman who was on the scene: “I could see two Iraqis pulling a body headfirst out of the vehicle on the road.I could see Iraqis jumping up and. down on top of a third vehicle, shouting ‘Death to America.’”

“The people are with us; they aid us and protect us,” a spokesman of the resistance said in an interview with the East Jerusalem Arabic paper Al Quds. The interview was summarized in the Mexico city daily La Jornada of Nov. 30.

He went on to say: “The resistance starts from the idea of national liberation, not loyalty to any figure.” He continued: “The resistance is 100 percent Iraqi. It includes different currents and personalities, people of different professions, the Islamic Movement, the Baath party, Nasserites, soldiers, policemen, doctors, engineers, teachers, and even artists and athletes, students and peasants, a broad sector of Sunnites, Shiites, Arabs, and Kurds.”

There have been some reports in the international press that many Iraqi policemen sympathize with the resistance, although they are also its targets. Most of the reports have focused on the demoralization of the Iraqi police, onto whom the U.S. wants to shift as much of its repressive function as possible as soon as possible.

The guerrilla war was marked in November in particular by a number of deadly attacks on the the forces of countries allied with the United States—Italy, Spain, Britain—and on civilian workers from South Korea and Colombia, as well as an increased number of attacks on Iraqis collaborating with the occupation.

The attacks on U.S. allies seemed to be based on the political assessment that since there was strong opposition to participation in the U.S. war in those countries that it would be increased if their nationals suffered more casualties. That calculation was probably correct.

On the other hand, the increased attacks on Iraqi collaborators can have negative effects for the resistance. Iraq is a mosaic of different ethnic and local groups, and resentments and divisions leading to violence are a real danger.

This raises the question of how effective the resistance can be without a unified and popular political leadership. The spokesman quoted in Al Quds claimed that there was a national leadership, but it is far from clear what it is or what it represents politically.

Up to a point, the resistance can be very effective against the occupation forces by taking advantage of the popular hatred of the invader and the ready availability of military weapons. But at some level, political questions are going to arise, and then the results are far from predictable.

However, the resistance has already managed to raise massive doubts among the populations of the countries involved in the U.S.-led war about the feasibility and/or desirability of maintaining a military occupation of Iraq. That is an important achievement for what appears have been a fragmented and spontaneous movement.

It opens up political space for the reorganization of an anti-imperialist movement in Iraq and for the remobilization and extension of the mass movement against imperialist war in the United States and its allies.

In this regard, the Iraqi protests and resistance have strengthened the prospects for the struggle against the international capitalist offensive, which threatens the livelihoods and well-being of millions in the imperialist countries themselves, as well as threatening to bring back in a still worse form all the evils of a naked imperialist domination.

The article above first appeared in the December 2003 issue of Socialist Action newspaper.